providence. How sweet the thought of supporting by her white and
feeble hand this colossus,--whose feet of clay she did not choose to
see; of giving life where life was needed; of being secretly the
creator of a career; of helping a man of genius to struggle with fate
and master it. Ah! to embroider his scarf for the tournament! to
procure him weapons! to be his talisman against ill-fortune! his balm
for every wound! For a woman brought up like Marie, religious and
noble as she was, such a love was a form of charity. Hence the
boldness of it. Pure sentiments often compromise themselves with a
lofty disdain that resembles the boldness of courtesans.

As soon as by her specious distinctions Marie had convinced herself
that she did not in any way impair her conjugal faith, she rushed into
the happiness of loving Raoul. The least little things of her daily
life acquired a charm. Her boudoir, where she thought of him, became a
sanctuary. There was nothing there that did not rouse some sense of
pleasure; even her ink-stand was the coming accomplice in the
pleasures of correspondence; for she would now have letters to read
and answer. Dress, that splendid poesy of the feminine life, unknown
or exhausted by her, appeared to her eyes endowed with a magic
hitherto unperceived. It suddenly became clear to her what it is to
most women, the manifestation of an inward thought, a language, a
symbol. How many enjoyments in a toilet arranged to please _him_, to
do _him_ honor! She gave herself up ingenuously to all those gracefully
charming things in which so many Parisian women spend their lives, and
which give such significance to all that we see about them, and in
them, and on them. Few women go to milliners and dressmakers for their
own pleasure and interest. When old they never think of adornment. The
next time you meet in the street a young woman stopping for a moment
to look into a shop-window, examine her face carefully. "Will he think